8. Tom Colicchio

$2 million

He taught himself how to cook by reading books. Today he owns three high-end Craft restaurants in New York, Los Angeles and Dallas, plus three steak houses. He's also a judge on Bravo's Top Chef cooking competition show.

7. Mario Batali

$3 million

The culinary school dropout is now a master of Italian cuisine who owns 13 restaurants in New York, Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Reservations at his New York spots Babbo and Del Posto are especially hard to get.

6. Paula Deen

$4.5 million

The queen of Southern cuisine serves up butter-drenched casseroles and motherly charm on two Food Network shows. Her loyal audience laps it up, and her cookbooks, memoir and magazine are all bestsellers.

5. Alain Ducasse

$5 million

This French chef's empire includes 22 restaurants from Tokyo to Paris. His first New York spot shuttered in 2006 after critics said the food was too fussy; he opened two humbler joints there this year.

4. Nobuyuki Matsuhisa

$5 million

The sushi chef to the stars began his career slicing fish in Tokyo, Peru, Argentina and Alaska. Now he co-owns 17 Nobu sushi restaurants around the globe. The ones in Los Angeles and New York are celebrity magnets.

3. Gordon Ramsay

$7.5 million

The foulmouthed British chef owns restaurants in London, New York and Dubai. He's better known for berating reality show contestants on Hell's Kitchen in the U.S. and Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares in the U.K.

2. Wolfgang Puck

$16 million

The Austrian-born patriarch of celebrity chefdom got his start with the ritzy Los Angeles restaurant Spago in 1982. That hot spot, once frequented by Orson Welles and Sidney Poitier, now counts Brad Pitt and Jamie Foxx among its regulars. Today Puck owns 15 other fine-dining brands, including Chinois, Cut and the Source, and he also sells sandwiches to weary airport travelers at Wolfgang Puck Express. He's got Wolfgang Puck Bistros in suburbia and sells soups in the grocery aisle and cutlery on the Home Shopping Network.

1. Rachael Ray

$18 million

The jaunty chef-next-door leapt from small-time cable stardom to Oprah-esque success. She began winning audiences with catchphrases like "Yum-o" on her first Food Network show, 30 Minute Meals, in 2001. Today she has four Food Network programs, including Tasty Travels and $40 a Day. Her nationally syndicated, Oprah-backed talk show, Rachael Ray, is averaging 2.6 million viewers this season, and her Every Day With Rachael Ray magazine has 1.5 million readers. She endorses Dunkin' Donuts too.